


Confidence

by Anonymous_Creator



Series: Marriene [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series) RPF
Genre: Genderplay, M/M, Ratings: R
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 20:34:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21151814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous_Creator/pseuds/Anonymous_Creator
Summary: Matt stumbles upon a pleasant amount of free time in his schedule and decides that a visit with Marriene would be nice.





	Confidence

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not discuss this fiction outside of A03. Like it, hate it, love it, leave it -- leave it here.

Matt sat at the diminutive vanity that was shoehorned into their bedroom and ran a finger over the edges of his jewelry box. Did any of his friends who happened to wander into this room see the slightly gaudy cream pleather, with its printed pink lace detail, and think it belonged to Marisha? Some childhood keepsake, perhaps.  
  
He brushed over the delicate swivel clasp with a finger once. Twice. Trying to figure out for himself what he wanted. It was a quiet afternoon. Marisha was busy with a VO audition reading and was using the booth at the studio. His hand drifted over the little feather-skirted dancer, her arms weighed down with bracelets and clip on earrings. She, too, looked like an old friend who had survived a few moves.  
  
He could keep hacking at the campaign. God knew his players were keeping him on his toes. But he felt a certain peace of mind knowing they were stuck in the Heirloom Sphere until they found their way out again. He needn’t fear this week for their mapmaker’s sanity and the guilt of asking for half a continent of detail with no notice.  
  
One way in, one way out mazes: Every DM needed a break now and again.  
  
The vanity had a small bit of storage built into the table, and Matthew took a moment to consider the arrangement of makeup brushes, eye shadow palettes, and other accoutrements of modern beauty. He picked up a little cardboard box they had reused from the latest batch of USB-C cables they’d ordered. The tiny perfume samples, each fragrance in a fragile glass tube with some kind of sprayer or stopper, clinked together as he stirred through them and chose one at random.  
  
His nose wrinkled. That was a bit too fruity. He tried again. Too… ocean? He squinted to read the label before he set the misplaced cologne out of the collection.  
  
The third one caught his attention. Interesting. There was this delightful bit of spice playing with vanilla that made him think of a fancy dessert.  
  
“It’s been so long since anyone looked at me like *I* was the sweet at the end of the night,” Matt said. His voice, low and dulcet, had shifted into the register he used for Marriene.  
  
Matt paused, his breath held, before he dared a look in the small desk mirror he had purposefully ignored until now.  
  
“Well, love, let’s admit it.” He pulled a few things from his side of the drawer and set them on top of the vanity. “We’re gonna need to do a little work to look scrumptious, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.”

They had delightful snatches of conversation as he slipped into Marriene’s skin.

“We’re both so tired darling,” she said, her nimble fingers busy with the foundation, “No wonder you so rarely visit.”  
  
He admired her new falsies. “Those are doing great things for your cheek bones and don’t ask me why; half of this is still arcane art to me.”  
  
There was a debate about going pink or peach with the lip gloss and blush.

“I can’t pull off this color,” he said. His brush hovered over the compact.

“Oh, but I can, darling. It’s all about confidence!” She dipped the brush against the pink and deftly flicked it across her cheek up towards her temple.  
  
The final touches of makeup complete, Matt was allowed one moment to scrape a hint of gloss off a tooth before Marriene stood up from the vanity.  
  
She stretched and rolled her shoulders out. Really. Ridiculous to have such a low chair considering how tall she was. What to do with her day?  
  
“Get dressed, love. That’s generally a good start.” She chewed on the edge of her lip as she opened her dresser drawer. Bralette and yoga pants kinda day? A sliver of some kind of paper caught her eye as she began to browse her bra collection. She felt her pulse thrum lightly in her ears as she pulled out a strangely shaped, padded envelope that had been carefully folded and tucked underneath the stack of her bras. It had her name written in Liam’s familiar hand and was otherwise blank.  
  
Nervous fingers explored the contents without opening it until her confusion cleared with a knowing gasp. She forced herself to sit on the edge of the bed and open the package with care. A light bundle, wrapped in tissue paper, tumbled into her hands along with a small note. Leave it to Liam to find pastel pink and white zebra printed tissue paper. She set that aside and read the note.  
  
Marriene, I’m glad you’re back in town. If the stars happen to align in our schedules and you’d like company, give me a call. I’d love to catch up. If not, well, just know I’ve been thinking about you. And thinking about you in this. XOXO, Liam  
  
The Os had been flourished into little hearts and Marriene hugged the note to her chest with a squeak. “Okay. Okay I was good. I read the note first,” she said as she set the note carefully down on the dresser’s glass top. She turned and hopped onto the bed, letting her legs fold under her in a smooth motion as she scrambled to tear away the paper from her gift.  
  
Her mouth fell open in a soft, silent, “Oh,” as the wrapping fell away. It was so much more interesting than she’d imagined. She’d half expected some skimpy black lace number when she’d felt the underwire. The bra was a vintage inspired style, something from the 40s or 50s perhaps, in soft mauve with white polka dots on the lower cups with a delicate bit of white lace on the upper. Her hands shook as she turned the matching underwear over in her hands and realized they were also vintage inspired bloomers. She held them up for a moment and noticed the bits of lace along the bottom.  
  
“Thinking of me. In these?” she said, her voice barely a whisper. They were lovely, sized correctly, and must have cost a small fortune. “Oh, Liam. How long have these been sitting in the bottom of that dresser drawer?”  
  
An idea came to her and she felt a thrill of excitement as she looked for her garter belt and thigh highs. She didn’t even need to look at her calendar to know Liam was directing today, but to wear his lovely gift without acknowledging his thoughtfulness – that just wouldn’t do. Not one bit. She adjusted herself in the bra and bloomers. It took a little bit to become acquainted with the way they held and constricted her as she started to prepare a gift for Liam in return.  
  
Her initial enthusiasm carried her through the first few minutes of tidying the bedroom and moving things around to clear up the space. A certain nervous zing coiled in her stomach as the bloomers brushed lightly against her thighs, so much lower than her usual panties.

Once she’d done the bulk of the work though, a needle of doubt pricked her. She’d studiously avoided photos. Photos, no matter how jealously guarded, could become so much more than cherished mementos. Her hands shook as she struggled to find a way to prop her phone so she could trigger the camera app on her Watch.  
  
Matt took over and confidently stacked several items behind the phone so it could rest at a fifteen degree angle. “Marriene, there are photos of me from Burning Man on Instagram. I’ve done more embarrassing bouts of Karaoke that are on the Internet. It’s okay. If this came out, I’d still be okay.” Matt stepped back, checked the Watch feed and glanced at Marriene in the mirror. She looked back at him nervously.

“Right,” she said. She took a moment to touch up her lip gloss. “Okay.”  
  
She climbed onto the bed and did her best to settle the bloomers so they barely traced the outline of her curves, her hair flipped over her shoulder. She fumbled with the button on her Watch and then laughed out loud when the little chime indicated it had taken a photo well before she’d managed to strike anything close to the desired pose. She didn’t bother getting out of bed to check, she just held out a defiant middle finger and then laughed as she triggered the camera again. She took a few more with plenty of back and forth before she finally got the one.  
  
She laid back against her pillow and didn’t bother to mask a soft groan. Her back informed her she was not a young twenty something whipper snapper, thank you kindly. After a few minutes of playing with filters she found something that read as boudoir – shadows around the edges, a nice sepia to go along with the vintage style.  
  
It still felt like it was missing something. She reached over to the dresser and grabbed the envelope. Her lips smacked across it and a lovely deposit of gloss remained behind on the stark white paper. Figuring out how to take that image and superimpose it on the photo took a frustrating and less than sexy fifteen minutes and a Wikihow tutorial, but the end effect was perfect.  
  
The long line of her legs was accentuated by the drape of the bloomers over her sex, pooling over her half crossed thighs and down onto the sheets. Marriene looked over her shoulder across the bed to the camera, her hair splayed out next to her face and a coy smile on her lips. The lipstain was a little kiss in the lower corner of the frame, where a signature might have gone.  
  
“Liam, you just thought you were thinking about me in this before.”  
  
Just one little, small, trivial, unimportant step left. She had to send it.  
  
She wasn’t used to being tongue tied, especially not in texts. She deleted all the words entirely and stared at the photo.  
  
“It’s all about confidence. Right?”  
  
\--  
  
Liam felt a buzz in his pocket and glanced at the clock in the corner of his system below the waveforms labeled Man - Walla – Market – Short. He was still expecting to be here another hour, at least. “That’s great, let’s go to the next one.” Liam hit tab and a new file popped into existence, ready to record, entitled Man – Walla - Market - Short - Variant2. Liam stifled a groan. He slipped his phone out and surreptitiously checked his messages while his actor waited for an indication to begin.  
  
The text message was just a photo - a privacy filter photo. From Matt? Liam looked behind his shoulder and down the hall before he swiped his finger across the screen to clear the fuzzy pixels. “Holy shit.”  
  
“Everything okay, Mr. O’Brien?”  
  
Liam looked up with a moment of blind panic as he realized his mic line was open to the recording booth. The phone slipped out of his hands and hit the table with a loud clank that caused his voice actor to pull off his over ear head phones. Liam mouthed ‘Sorry’ and hurriedly flashed a thumbs up signal before he ducked down to find his phone.  
  
The screen was thankfully intact, and Liam realized that his message was marked as Read. Which meant Marriene was waiting on his reply. Right now. He texted the first thing that sprang into his head and hit send before he popped up from behind the desk.  
  
\--  
  
Marriene had enough time to wonder if Liam would even be able to reply – if he wanted to reply – if this had been a terrible mist— and then the text came in. She felt a hot flush light up her cheeks as she read it.  
  
Marriene – I have to record 2 more hours of walla and the only thing I’m going to be thinking about is how amazing you look right now. How’d a guy like me land a dame like you?


End file.
